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Simon, that is to say Rhodojani, was in love with Lucy Railton, and his conduct, says she, was strange before leaving; but he pretended to be John Railton's friend, and, from what you say, must have had an astonishing influence over the unhappy man.
I looked round about. A hush had succeeded the closing words of Rhodojani. Even the coroner was puzzled for a moment; but improbable as the evidence might seem, there was none to gainsay it. I alone, had they but known it, could give this demon the lie I, an unnoticed child. The coroner put a question or two and then summed up. Again the old drowsy insensibility fell upon me.
This was all, and small enough, as I thought, was the light it threw on the problem before us. Uncle Loveday read it over three or four times; then folded up the letter and looked at me over his spectacles. "You say this cut-throat fellow this Rhodojani, as he called himself spoke English?" "As well as we do. He and the other spoke English all the time." "H'm! And he talked about a Jenny, did he?"
But if he comes upon the record of a certain vessel, the James and Elizabeth, wrecked upon the Cornish coast on the night of October 11th, 1849, he may know it to be the same. For that was the name given by the only survivor, one Georgio Rhodojani, a Greek sailor, and as the James and Elizabeth she stands entered to this day.
For there, looking in upon us with a wicked smile, was the white face of the sailor Rhodojani. For a second or two, petrified with horror, we stood staring at it. The evil smile flickered for a moment, baring the white teeth and lighting the depths of those wolfish eyes; then, with a fiendish laugh, vanished in the darkness. He had, then, told the truth when he promised to haunt me.
I had described the face and figure of my enemy and had even identified him with the long-missing sailor Georgio Rhodojani, so that they promised to lay hands on him in a very short space. But the public knew nothing of this. The only effect of the newspapers' version of the murder was to send the town crowding in greater numbers than ever to see the dead man's play.
The voices sounded more and more like those of a dream; the scratching of pens and shuffling of feet were, to my ears, as distant murmurs of the sea, until the coroner's voice called "Georgio Rhodojani." Instantly I was wide awake, with every nerve on the stretch.
Again I felt his eyes question me, again my mother's hand tightened upon mine, as the stranger stood up and in softest, most musical tones gave his evidence. And the evidence of Georgio Rhodojani, Greek sailor, as translated by Jacopo Rousapoulos, interpreter, of Penzance, was this: "My name is Georgio Rhodojani. I am a Greek by birth, and have been a sailor all my life.
If, however, his curiosity lead him further to inquire into the after-history of this same Georgio Rhodojani, let him go on a fine summer day to the County Lunatic Asylum at Bodmin, and, with permission, enter the grounds set apart for private patients. There he may chance to see a strange sight. On a garden seat against the sunny wall sit two persons a man and a woman.
That the man who called himself Georgio Rhodojani was guilty of one death, I knew from the witness of my own eyes: that he had two more lives upon his black account for the hand that struck my father had also slain my mother I knew as surely. "And the devil has got his due, my lads!" No, not yet: there was still one priceless soul for him to wait for.
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